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About wwj5555

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I came down with MRSA here in San Diego.
It's way more serious then is being reported here. MRSA often enters through the nose, and can travel to the brain.
I had a giant hole in my leg, and half my head swelled up like a balloon as it traveled towards my brain. I spent a week in intensive care, and the doctors weren't confident I would live. After a long recovery and alot of IV antibiotics, I'm still alive and sailing.
Also I was at risk for losing my leg.
Sailors should get together and boycott the event. Demand moving the venue. It's not worth the risk.
Take this out of the hands of the idiots that can't make the right call.
This is serious shit, and can result in death.
Good sailing,

I've been in the charter business for 28 years, drove 2 large ribs during 3 America's Cups in San Diego with spectators. Also took Il moro VIPs, and operated as support boat for Il Moro's cup boats during the cup. I have thousands of hours driving these RIBs in all sorts of conditions.
1st the Rib driver used poor risk assessment with the crew he allowed on board. When the wife and spectators are aboard, a Captain needs to operate the boat in a more conservative way, and leave a better margin for error. If he is operating officially in a spectator control capacity, that crew shouldn't have been on the boat. When I was working tight in with the cup boats tranferring and supporting, I never took any spectators, friends, family etc. Only me and the pros on the boat. Passengers are like fragile eggs. Even just falling off the RIB tube onto the deck can cause a serious injury.
2nd From the photos, that is not my idea of anything even close to being crowded. In San Diego during the cup, often there were so many boats out that it was very difficult to keep an exit open. Always need to keep an exit path in mind in case another boat does something unpredictable. During the San Diego cups, we had all sorts of various speed cup boats sailing through the spectator fleet. Looking at the photos, there is clearly plenty of open water around the RIB to stay clear of the tri. He wasn't boxed in, and had plenty of options.
3rd The operator always has to assume the sailboat will do something unexpected. I've had Dennis Connor come fast at me out of control on a collision course with both bows under the water, and that winged cat's rudders out of the water, and useless. All these RIBS have the power to turn hard and get the hell out of the way. That giant tri doesn't turn that fast, and there is no excuse for the rib not getting out of his way. 115 hp is plenty of power to accelerate enough to stay clear.
Maybe the tri shouldn't have been where he was. That doesn't take away the responsibility of the RIB to keep his crew safe.
With friends aboard, it's very easy to get distracted, and it only takes a moment for something really bad to happen. I always tell my Captains that work in my business, "you are at the party, but you are never in the party". 100% attention all the time. To let that giant tri run over his RIB, that operator had to be distracted.
This is a very sad mistake that several people are going to have to live with for the rest of their lives. I feel bad for all involved. In my business, we've taken over 100,000 and never hurt anybody. I can't imagine carrying around that sort of guilt.

I've watched the video a few times, and at .45 it looks like to me the crew sitting behind the helmsman on the windward stern stepped on the tiller tie bar pushing it to leeward causing the helmsman to not be able to drive off. Does anybody else see this?

I've gotten myself into all sorts of situations that scared the crap out of me from the Worrell 1000 to a 60 knot papagayo off of Nicaragua on my Seawind catamaran. Recently aboard my Maine Cat I got into dangerous conditions in the Gulf Stream between Key West and Cuba heading for the Panama Canal. No mainsails and tiny jibs got me through severe weather while on my cruising "7 knot shitbox" catamarans. Triple reef mainsails were too much sail area and made the boats surf way too fast.
Weather is pretty difficult to dodge when sailing the slow catamarans that I can afford, and I expect the get the crap kicked out of me once in a while.
Now here is my wtf about rainmakers dumbass pro Capt. Allowing that freighter to come along side that seaworthy Gunboat was reckless and showed extreme poor judgement. The crew was safe until he pulled that move. There is no condition I would ever let a ship near me in a seaway unless I was climbing up out of a life raft. At least he changed his mind after some smashing, and didn't try to get his crew up a ladder in those seas. There's plenty of history of boats being sunk and crews being smashed between the hulls trying to pull this off. If the owner was pressuring him,and was out of control, he should have tied him up and put him to bed.
The Capt. has to make the big calls when the time comes.
Rory Mc Dougal sailed around the world in his little Tiki 21 foot catamaran, and has finished top 5 in the singlehanded Jester transatlantic race more then once.
Catamarans make very stable rafts in bad weather. Rig or no rig, lines in prop, whatever. Being hoisted up into a Coast Guard helicopter flying at the edge of its fuel range just can't be as safe as drifting along aboard the most expensive stable carbon fiber raft ever built.
Many many characters and elderly sailors have made it around the world in their home built plywood epoxy Wharram catamarans enduring all sorts of worse weather including some full force hurricanes.
And that photo of Rainmaker's crew posing with the Coast Guard rescuers with their shit eating stupid grins on their faces......JFC.

On cats going backwards.....lol. They go backwards if you get them in irons sailing upwind. They go backwards when you try to reef them if you get the boat a bit too high on the wind, and don't start the engines. They go backwards if you get disoriented at night during any sort of tacking or gybing and get the boat too high. (With the high cabin, you can't feel the wind, and on a very dark night, it's not hard for this to happen). Learning to handle a big cat backwards is one of the 1st skills a new big cat owner needs to learn. In a gale, just the windage on the rig can get the boat going backwards at high speed.
During reefing in a gale, I got my seawind too high one time, and the boat started going backwards at such high speed that water rushed up the swim steps into the cockpit......that was a bit shocking. All of these things happend in the 1st month I owned the boat while getting used to the differences between mono and multi cruising.
Good cat builders know their boats are going to go in reverse, and build strength into their rudder systems. Cat rudders are small rudders to begin with, and they don't need to turn very far. Most good cat builders build their rudders strong enough to take the weight of the sterns sitting on the beach. My seawind had very strong rudder stops in the sterns, and they didn't turn very far. There usually is a water tight compartment back there on most cats so this boat shouldn't have been sinking with a broken shaft.
Steering a big cat with the sails and no rudders in a gale with big waves.....good luck on that one.
Cats like most boats sit broadside to the waves when not under sail. The motion of a big cat broadside in big waves is absolutely hideous, and I suspect the entire crew were seasick. That will definately effect a crews decision to take the helicopter home.

I had a sistership to the Pardey's Taleisin. Plank on frame hull, but with a more modern deck with marine ply, epoxy saturated dynel, and teak overlay on top of that. I had mine custom built, and she was, and is amazing. A bit more modern then Taleisin with a yanmar, electrical system, frig, but all the modern stuff on the boat was cleverly hidden behind beautiful panels. So when you stepped aboard my Hess cutter, the boat felt identical to Taleisin. Even my engine controls and throttles were hidden in the coamings.
She was a very nice sailing boat, and I enjoyed her alot. I sailed her in all sorts of conditions up to survival conditions off the Oregon coast.....very safe strong boat. I've owned lots of boats: Valiant 42, Shannon, Seawind Catamaran, Maine Cat, some Hunters, and lots of little boats. I just love almost all boats. Boats are cool, and there are a thousand ways to enjoy them.
Taleisin for sale is like selling artwork. How much is a painting worth. I see people buying new big Hunters, and losing 100k a few years later after the depreciation. How much was the dream worth? How much is a boat worth? How much is it worth to walk down the dock and admire your own boat? It's all very subjective. I just love to see people enjoying their boats. and it's great to stand back and say....wow that's cool!
I know the Pardeys, and they are real nice people. Yes they have some opinions, but I don't know many sailors that aren't opinionated. It makes them interesting.
When I look at Lin and Larry, their boats, and what they've done, I just have to say "wow.....cool"!
My Hess cutter attached...